Raphael Slawinski

Next month will be twenty-four years since I first climbed the north face of Athabasca. There are far bigger and harder ice faces in the Rockies, but that particular shield of snow and ice, capped by a layered cake of rotten limestone, has got to be the most classic. The glacier-draped north aspect of the peak adorns countless postcards, but the view of it driving south on the Parkway is no less sublime for that.  Erol Altay, with whom I took some of my first steps on vertical ice in the city-park like surroundings of Starved Rock two hours west of Chicago, had flown west for a couple of weeks. We kicked off his trip in rock shoes on Yamnuska, changed into crampons for the Ice Bulge on the north face of Fay, then headed up the Parkway intent on Athabasca. Back in 1995 Rockies’ ice faces were still a reasonable proposition in August, not the ugly, scarred things they tend to become by late summer these days.  Plastic boots and Footfangs on our feet, Pulsars in our han...

This past summer, Alik Berg and I went to Pakistan to have a mountain adventure. Below is a brief report from our expedition. For a more impressionistic account, check out this  Bird Blog . For a photo essay, check out this Flickr album . *** In the summer of 2018 Alik Berg and I traveled to Pakistan to climb in the Karakoram. As often happens, neither the final team nor the final objective ended up being what they had been originally. To begin with, there were four of us intent on exploring the largely untouched peaks of the Kondus valley. Over the winter, however, Chris Brazeau and Ian Welsted pulled out. Then, just a couple of months before our departure, military authorities refused the permit application for our primary objective, the unclimbed K13 (6666 m). We scrambled to find another goal, and settled on the unclimbed Pumari Chhish East (ca. 6900 m). I was familiar with the peak, having attempted it unsuccessfully in 2009 , and knew to be a difficult and inspiring...

The first time I tried a really big mountain was in 2006. In the summer of that year Ben Firth, Eamonn Walsh, Ian Welsted and I traveled to Pakistan to attempt the then-unclimbed Kunyang Chhish East (ca. 7400 m). We felt strong and fit. In the weeks before our departure I went on an alpine climbing binge on Mt. Andromeda. It culminated with the first ascent, together with Scott Semple, of DTCB, an unlikely line left of the Andromeda Strain. Onsighting virgin Rockies’ choss, I felt on top of my game. As we made our way to Kunyang by plane, jeep and foot, I was optimistic about our chances. The 2500-metre tall southwest face of Kunyanf Chhish East, Pakistan. It was not to be: our highest attempt ground to a halt nearly a vertical kilometre below the virgin summit. It happens; after all, success on an expedition to Pakistan is never a given. But it wasn’t overhanging rock or thin ice that stopped us. In fact, our climbing skills were never put to a real test. No, what made us t...

The steep gully, hemmed in by walls of featureless limestone, opened up into a small snowfield, but higher up it necked down again. As the beam of my headlamp swept up the nearly vertical chimney, instead of the hoped-for snow bowl, it revealed nothing but blank, bulging rock walls. I'd led us into a dead end. Traversing to a snow arete bordering the gully on the right, crampons scratching on rock under a thin covering of snow, I looked down into another couloir. It seemed more open than the one I'd been following. Maybe it was the right one? I traversed back into the dead-end gully and pounded in a knifeblade. Adding a stubby screw, I shouted down, "Secure!" A few minutes later a headlamp appeared below, and soon thereafter Alik himself. After a brief discussion of our options, he tensioned over and down into the other gully. Removing the screw and leaving a 'biner on the piton, I followed, the jury-rigged toprope cutting into the faceted snow of the are...

This past spring  Rob Smith  and I spent five weeks in the Alaska Range. We arrived in Talkeetna with ambitious plans: in a perfect world, we'd warm up on the French Route on the north buttress of Mt. Hunter before moving on to the Slovak Route on the south face of Denali. I knew the world isn't perfect though, and would have been ecstatic had we gotten up just one of these. In retrospect, even that seemingly realistic outlook now appears wildly optimistic, as we didn't manage so much as to stand at the base of either wall. Still, it'd be wrong to say that the trip had been a waste of time. At the risk of rationalizing failure, it'd be sad if my sole measure of success in climbing was whether I'd sent this or that "hard" route. During the five weeks I spent in the land of eternal daylight (as is Alaska in late May and June), I had some fantastic experiences. I got to know Rob, with whom I'd only spent a few days ice climbing before. We lived th...

The crunch of shoes on frozen mud in the morning; yellow aspen leaves fluttering to the ground; and warm afternoon sunshine on rough limestone. But also: north faces dusted with fresh snow; dripping water stilled into icicles by nights growing longer and colder; and bright larches on the valley floor far below. October in the Rockies presents altogether too many choices. For years, I used to spend it chasing one last summery adventure on sunny summits, or the first wintry one in shaded couloirs. But more recently, a growing obsession with rock gymnastics saw me spending my Octobers chasing this or that elusive redpoint, until the days grew just too short, too grey and too miserable to contemplate bare-handed crimping. When I'd finally trade sticky rubber for crampons, I'd realize it was November, and that deep snow and winter cold had already come to the high country. And so I'd tell myself that, the following year, I wouldn't miss that bittersweet interlude betwee...